{"id":29312,"date":"2022-12-24T21:06:17","date_gmt":"2022-12-24T21:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=29312"},"modified":"2022-12-24T21:06:19","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T21:06:19","slug":"packed-icus-crowded-crematoriums-covid-roils-chinese-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=29312","title":{"rendered":"Packed ICUs, crowded crematoriums: COVID roils Chinese towns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ABC News: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BAZHOU, China — Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China<\/a>\u2019s industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey say there\u2019s no beds here,\u201d she barked into her phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors for a lack of beds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yao\u2019s elderly mother-in-law had fallen ill a week ago with the coronavirus<\/a>. They went first to a local hospital, where lung scans showed signs of pneumonia. But the hospital couldn\u2019t handle serious COVID-19 cases, Yao was told. She was told to go to larger hospitals in adjacent counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Yao and her husband drove from hospital to hospital, they found all the wards were full. Zhuozhou Hospital, an hour\u2019s drive from Yao\u2019s hometown, was the latest disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yao charged toward the check-in counter, past wheelchairs frantically moving elderly patients. Yet again, she was told the hospital was full, and that she would have to wait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m furious,\u201d Yao said, tearing up, as she clutched the lung scans from the local hospital. \u201cI don\u2019t have much hope. We\u2019ve been out for a long time and I\u2019m terrified because she\u2019s having difficulty breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over two days, Associated Press journalists visited five hospitals and two crematoriums in towns and small cities in Baoding and Langfang prefectures, in central Hebei province. The area was the epicenter of one of China\u2019s first outbreaks after the state loosened COVID-19 controls in November and December. For weeks, the region went quiet, as people fell ill and stayed home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many have now recovered. Today, markets are bustling, diners pack restaurants and cars are honking in snarling traffic, even as the virus is spreading in other parts of China. In recent days, headlines in state media said the area is \u201c starting to resume normal life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But life in central Hebei\u2019s emergency wards and crematoriums is anything but normal. Even as the young go back to work and lines at fever clinics shrink, many of Hebei\u2019s elderly are falling into critical condition. As they overrun ICUs and funeral homes, it could be a harbinger of what’s to come for the rest of China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABC News: BAZHOU, China — Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China\u2019s industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full. \u201cThey say there\u2019s no beds here,\u201d she barked into her phone. As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29314,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29312\/revisions\/29314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}